Get one free drink every day with the FOOM app. Interview with Co-founder Lokesh Bevara

FOOM is “India’s first subscription based platform for drinks” that allows its member to enjoy one free drink daily at different participating restro-bars and pubs. Launched in 2017, this Bangalore based start-up offers drinks service at a minimal subscription fee. The members can pick one free drink everyday from a wide range of Beverages.

Here we are in conversation with Lokesh Bevara, co-founder and CEO of the app.

When and what made you come up with the idea of FOOM?

Lokesh Bevara, CEO & Co-founder of FOOM

Being a social person, I frequently visited various restaurants and pubs. Sometimes it was just old friends catching up, while other times it used to be formal business meetings. Each time what remained a common ritual was having a drink or two. The recent socialising trends also got an upgrade where people ‘catch up for beer’ more often.It made me think that how much people spend in just drinking. The approximate figures were surprising. Since then the idea of FOOM started shaping up but I will not say that it just happened in a day, it took me quite a few months before getting sure about what I want to do. So the Eureka moment spanned over a few months.

Tell us about your confidence in the product and its potential. How do you plan to expand over coming years.

FOOM did not happen just in a day. There was a long and meticulously drawn out market research. Before deciding to take a plunge into it, I visited a number of pubs and restaurants in Bangalore and interviewed the merchants as well as the visitors. My main concern was that would people be interested in something of this kind or not. This questioning and answering cycle went for around 4-6 months. When we got positive feedbacks from various people and merchants and felt they were ready then we decided to take it further. Previously our subscription model comprised of 30 drinks a month with a limit of one free drink every day. This did not sound too lucrative to the potential customers and they wanted something more. We made one of the major market corrections by making two drinks each day with a total of 15 drinks a month.

FOOM can be titled as a way where you actually spend less but gain a lot more. We all know that we always want more for less and this is what FOOM does. FOOM is one such subscription plan that can help you to become a more organised drinker (though an oxymoron) while having regular social outings. Right now, FOOM is active in just one city but we are working towards launching it in all tier 1 cities soon. Using the application is simple.

One can easily download the application from the App Store or Play store.

If you want to first try then you can register yourself as a free user and then review the available outlets.

Visit the selected place, pay the bill, and let them know the table number.

Order your favourite drink from FOOM specific menu and have it free

Currently we are focusing at polishing the performance of our application and launching FOOM in tier-1 cities by 2019. We are also targeting the overseas market by 2020.

You have been a serial entrepreneur. Tell us about one thing that you would like to take forward from your past experience and one thing that you would like to do differently.

As a serial entrepreneur one major take away from my previous experiences is the success of any start-up is “99% execution, whereas the idea constitute only 1%” in the success.

FOOM is called an app for a free drink. What are your subscription plans? Do you have a plans on offer where you can get more than one drink per day via FOOM?

Right now, our application provides two types of models one is free and the other one is subscription based.

Free- Once you have registered on our application then you can get one free drink every day for 7 days but in that case you will have to pay a minimum bill account of Rs.500.

Subscription- Our subscription plan costs Rs.777 for a month. We are soon launching another paid subscription plan. With this plan you can buy maximum two drinks every day at the listed FOOM outlets. There is no bill limit in this plan and the total free drinks that you can get in a month are 15.

Will FOOM only cater to the drinks and beverages segment or move on to Food as well?

Foom is in the process of creating world’s first subscription based platform for drinks.

Eventually Foom can become a subscription based platform for Food and beverages, and we are very excited about our idea of making Foom a global product for food and drinks.

How has the response been for the app in Bengaluru from establishment (pub/bars) owners?

Bars and pubs are very happy with Foom. In words of Yashwant Singh, Director of Bak Bak Bar–“It’s is a wonderful proposition, a unique concept and a value for money model for both merchants and consumers. In the last one month, when FOOM was still in its trial-run phase, we have seen many people coming to our pubs through this platform. Being a part of Foom, is a win-win deal for us and we are very confident that in the coming few years, we will see a significant growth in the number of customers using this platform”.

How has the response been from the end customer? What has been FOOM success story till now?

We have got a very positive response from our customers and the outcome is that in a span of almost one month, the app has got more than 3500 downloads, with 2000+ customers subscribed on the platform.

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